To follow up on a previous post, The New York Times reports that Texas approved a 4.93 billion dollar wind power transmission project today. This will be used to help develop transmission lines to deliver electricity to larger cities such as Dallas and San Antonio.

A host of UT-Austin journalism grad students enrolled in the Advanced Writing and Public Affairs Reporting course penned several good pieces on Texas and the Military last semester, which I was lucky enough to stumble upon. Gems include:

• The Texas Military: Then and Now, by Elisabeth Long
• PTSD: A Quiet Battle, by Elisabeth Kristof
• Defense Contracts Make Iraq a "Green Zone” for Texas Companies Big and Small, by Matt Hinton
• Austin’s VA Clinic Treats Invisible Injuries, by William Gest
• The Economics of Texas Base Closures, by Kim Loop

Props to fellow UT JGrads.

Text of a July 16 UN press release received earlier today:

UN WORLD COURT ORDERS UNITED STATES TO STAY EXECUTIONS OF MEXICAN NATIONALS

The principal judicial organ of the United Nations today ordered the United States to delay the executions of five Mexican nationals on death row in its prisons until the court issues a final ruling on the matter.

In a seven to five vote, judges sitting on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said the US must “take all measures necessary” to ensure that the five men are not executed before the final ruling, unless and until their cases are reviewed and reconsidered in line with a 2004 ruling on the same issue by the ICJ.

The court found then that the US had been in breach of its international obligations because authorities did not inform 51 Mexican nationals of their right to contact their consular representatives “without delay” after being arrested.

The ICJ, also known as the World Court, found the US had breached several obligations contained in the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and said the US should review and reconsider the convictions and sentences.

Mexico applied to the court last month for a stay in the executions of five of the 51 nationals. One man, José Ernesto Medellín Rojas, is scheduled to be executed in Texas on 5 August. Four others – César Roberto Fierro Reyna, Rubén Ramirez Cárdenas, Humberto Leal García and Roberto Moreno Ramos – could soon receive execution dates.

Mexico said requests by the men for review and reconsideration of their cases have repeatedly been denied.

The ICJ also ruled, by 11 votes to one, that the US shall inform the court of the measures it is taking to implement today’s order. The World Court’s judgments are binding and cannot be appealed.

From a press release via the Common Dreams NewsWire:

AUSTIN, Texas - July 14 - A coalition of public interest groups and legislators Monday urged the state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) to build more wind power transmission lines, saying that is the best way to reduce energy costs for Texas residents.

A $6.4 billion investment in transmission lines, which would last 50 years, could reduce power prices by more than $3 billion a year, said the coalition, which included Public Citizen, West Texas Wind Energy Consortium, Texas Impact, the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, Texas Senator Kirk Watson, (D-Austin), and Texas Representatives Mike Villarreal (D- San Antonio) and Mark Strama (D-Austin). The PUC is expected to discuss the issue on Thursday, July 17.

Wind power could also increase jobs across Texas:

A study by the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium looked at the number of jobs created at various levels of expansion. It used the impact of wind power in Nolan County as the basis for its analysis. Nolan County stands as the epicenter of Texas’ wind energy industry. Along with the adjacent counties of Scurry, Taylor, Mitchell and Coke, the Sweetwater region is home to well over half of all operational wind energy production in Texas and about 15 percent of all U.S. wind energy operations. If it were a state, Nolan County would rank as the second largest for wind energy operations.

Strama added, "Wind has been good for job creation all across Texas, already creating new jobs at manufacturing plants in more than a dozen communities from Nacogdoches to El Paso, four new research and development facilities, four new operations and maintenances centers, and increased shipping through five Texas ports from Corpus Christi to Beaumont. This study shows that if we were to build the renewable superhighways and fully develop 25,000 megawatts of wind, the wind-producing regions of Texas could see as many as 11,000 jobs, $145 million annually in local taxes, and over $122 million annually in landowner royalties."

 According to another press release, green energy jobs have increased while coal industry jobs have declined. 

Meant to post a couple items yesterday, but had trouble connecting to the tubes. Here's a recent piece from NACLA on Latin American mercenaries hired by the United States to fight in Iraq. It appears on pages 9-12 of the July/August 2008 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas.  The rest of the issue deals with HIV/AIDS in Latin America.